Display reveals the man behind the Mallard

“And Sir Nigel Gresley was definitely one of the hardest workers”, said Carolyn Dalton, manager of Doncaster Museum and Art Gallery.

The museum is preparing for a landmark exhibition to celebrate the 75th anniversary of Mallard setting the land speed record.

And among the highlights of that exhibition is the chance to get a rare glimpse of the personality behind the famous name that is Mallard’s engineer Sir Nigel.

Ms Dalton said: “We’ve very kindly been lent some of the letters that he wrote.

“Most of them were written while he was on holiday to a chap called Harper, one of his assistants.

“You get a real feel of just what sort of a worker he was - there he was, on holiday, demanding news from Doncaster.”

In one of the letters, written from Paris, Sir Nigel announces that he has scrapped ideas for glass-topped tables on the trains, and will be putting small pads on them to prevent glasses and bottles from sliding.

“This is the detail he went into”, Ms Dalton said.

“He was a man who really put the work in.”

The exhibition, which opens next Friday, September 6, has been organised to coincide with Doncaster’s famous St Leger festival, one of the highlights of the flat racing calendar.

Entitled “Mallard - A Doncaster Thoroughbred”, the exhibition is described as a “celebration” of not just Mallard, but all of the 35 A4 locomotives to be designed by Sir Nigel and built in Doncaster in the 1930s.

A spokesman for the museum said: “The display includes nameplates from other famous A4s such as Seagull, Kingfisher, Silver King and P2 Cock o’ the North.

“Visitors will be able to see Sir Nigel’s boardroom table, on which the original designs and other papers would have been displayed.

“Rare artefacts from the Doncaster Grammar School Railway Collection are also included and never before seen in public.

“One of these is the original Royal Coat of Arms of Canada, borrowed by the National Railway Museum for the restoration of Dominion of Canada.

“Visitors will also be able to see a model of the Golden Eagle A4 built in the Doncaster Works by apprentices as well as Cuneo’s original masterpiece ‘Giants Refreshed’ which was used for the famous LNER poster of the same name.”

Referring to the A4 nameplates, Ms Dalton said: “The trains were commissioned for the silver jubilee of George V in 1935 and were all painted grey, to look like bullets speeding through the countryside.

“People loved them. They were so stylish.”

She added: “Sir Nigel Gresley was a real bird enthusiast, so a lot of the engines were named after birds.

“For example, from the museum collections, we have a model of the Golden Eagle that was built by apprentices at the Doncaster Plant Works.”

Other highlights include Sir Nigel’s table - which has been in use in Doncaster for decades.

“We hold meetings around it,” the museum manager explained.

“It was built just after Sir Nigel Gresley came to Doncaster in 1910.”

The exhibition runs at Doncaster Museum and Art Gallery, in Chequer Road, and runs until Saturday, November 2.

The St Leger Festival, during which the world’s oldest classic horse race will be run, begins four days later, while on Saturday, September 14 and Sunday, September 15 the Mallard herself will be on show at Doncaster’s Freightliner depot.

On top of Freightliner agreeing to host the event, a Freightliner locomotive will be bringing Mallard down the East Coast.

Mayor of Doncaster, Ros Jones said: “We’re absolutely thrilled that Mallard is coming back home to Doncaster –and the fact that it is linking with the St Leger brings added cause for celebration.

“Doncaster is known throughout the world for its rich racing and railway heritage and bringing the two together means that this year’s St Leger Festival will be very special indeed.”

Anthony Coulls, senior curator of railway vehicles, at the National Railway Museum in York, added: “During Mallard’s big anniversary year we wanted to give the people of Doncaster the chance to see the world’s fastest steam locomotive in the town where it was built.”